Weekly10 - How to manage employees during tough times.pdf

A SIMPLE GUIDE TO NAVIGATING STORMY WATERS
How to manage performance
and employee engagement
during tough times
We show you how to help your people become resilient in the face of
uncertainty. And the effect that recessions, pandemics, and M&A activity has on
employee engagement, performance, and wellbeing.

Here’s what we mean by tough times
Tough times take many shapes. They can happen at a societal level
thanks to the 24/7 news coverage. Or they can be incredibly
personal. And everything in between.
They can relate directly to your business and things inside your orbit
of control. Or they can be something that impacts the world, which
means you have zero control over them.
This has never felt truer than the past 3 years. We’ve had
unprecedented times thanks to COVID, a war in Ukraine, and turmoil
in local and global economies.
Change is an inevitable part of life. And it’s an inevitable part of
business too. From macro-economic events, to the more mundane
like new ownership or leadership. Change impacts the way we work
all the time. It brings uncertainty, upheaval, and stress.
At the heart of those stresses are your people.
As a business leader, HR professional or people manager, it’ partly
on you to ensure your people are protected, supported, and
developed during any tough times. Central to that are their
engagement, performance, and wellbeing.
But how do you look after your people during challenging times?
How do you ensure employee engagement remains strong, or boost
personal performance in a downturn? How do you protect your
people’s wellbeing and be sure they can speak up when needed?
We’re focusing on the large-scale events that impact the
way we work and are often out of our direct control.
Why? Like any good Scout – it’s better to be prepared. They
can have huge impacts on how we operate our business and
how our people work. They typically happen infrequently
which means we’re less likely to plan for when they occur.
To be specific, we’re focussing on 3 events that lead to
change and tough times for business and their people:
1. Recessions
2. Pandemics
3. Mergers and acquisitions
Short on time?
Here’s your 3 absolute must-reads:
• Page 4 – Why focus on people during tough times
• Page 16 - How to prepare your people for tough times
• Page 20 - How to weather the storm
01 Employee engagement, performance, and wellbeing during tough times

Recessions
Countries and financial institutions have
different criteria1 to define a recession.
However, there are some shared
characteristics, including significant:
• decline in economic
• decline in real income
• decline in retail sales
• decline in industrial production
• increase in unemployment
Recessions are an unavoidable part of
economic cycles. And they happen more
often than you’d think. Since 1900, the US
has seen 23 recessions and the UK 9.
There have been 4 global recessions
since the end of World War II.
Recessions are on the horizon for most
within the next 12 months2: the US and
Australia in 2023, and the UK is forecast
to be a step ahead3, driven by soaring
energy prices.
01 Setting the scene: employee engagement, performance, and wellbeing during tough times
A pandemic4 is “an epidemic…crossing
international boundaries and usually
affecting a large number of people.” The
most obvious example is COVID-19.
The likelihood of another pandemic is
low but inevitable5. Now, that’s not to
say you need to prepare for another
pandemic soon. But as COVID-19
showed, and many experts continue to
warn, a pandemic can happen at any
time. Especially with international travel
regaining pace.
A merger happens when two or more
companies join forces to create one new
company. An acquisition is when one
takes over another: either by force or
agreement. Attempted M&A happens all
the time. But successful ones rare.
Between 70% and 90%6 fail. That’s
typically because key people leave,
restructuring happens, or
disengagement sets in.
M&A is exciting and stressful in equal
measure. But whether it’s a welcome
union or a hostile takeover, they are
times of immense change and
uncertainty for everyone involved. HR
and business leaders must anticipate
and plan for the impact on your people.
Pandemics Mergers and
Acquisitions
David Blackburn, Chief People
Officer explains how the Financial
Services Compensation Scheme
bucked a global HR trend during
the recent pandemic. See page 12.
23 9 4
Sarah Middleton, Brand Integrations
Communication Manager at ERM
explains the role managers play in
keeping engagement high during
M&A activity. See page 14.

Why you need to focus on employee engagement,
performance, and wellbeing during tough times
Engagement, performance, and wellbeing really matter when it comes
to having happy, healthy, and productive people. In turn, this helps
your business thrive. Even during times of great change and
uncertainty.
So, let’s lay things out.
Why does employee engagement matter in
tough times?
We think of employee engagement as the level of emotional sentiment
and commitment an employee has to their work, their peers, and the
company’s goals and purpose.
In essence it’s about how connected we are to who we work alongside,
the work we’re doing, and company mission. This connection powers
our commitment, effort, pride, and satisfaction we take from our work.
Employee engagement affects just about every aspect of your
organisation: profitability, revenue, customer experience, employee
turnover, and wellbeing. It creates better processes and enables
better management, so your people are happier and more productive.
This leads to better morale, more satisfied customers, higher-quality
products, less employee turnover, and higher profits.
All these things matter during tough times. But higher loyalty and lower
attrition will really help weather the storm.
💡 Read our guide to employee engagement
in a remote-working world for practical tips
on increasing engagement.
Increase in
productivity
22%
Reduction in
absenteeism
41%
Increase in
innovation
44%
Why engagement matters
Increase in
retention
40%

Employee performance
is a life-saver in times of crisis
Whilst measuring productivity is important, understanding
performance is even more so when it comes to impacting wider
business areas and keeping your people central to planning
through tough times.
Employee performance is a mix of things, often described as
someone’s ability to do their work to a particular standard. But
performance encompasses much more, including:
• Punctuality
• Communication
• How happy they are to work in a team
• Attitude to work
• How they treat and interact with their colleagues
By keeping an eye on employee performance during times of
change and uncertainty you can:
• Increase employee engagement
• Improve morale
• Improve your workforces attitude to business processes
• Identify and act upon problems within the work environment
that will damage productivity if left unchecked — bullying, for
example
• Create room to bring in changes which aim to enhance
efficiency and ultimately, productivity
Employee wellbeing must be prioritised
During uncertain times, focus must be laser-sharp as employees
battle increased stress and worry. With that in mind, it’s
important to know the basics when it comes to looking after
your people.
Managers, leaders, and HR have a moral responsibility to look
after their employees. Your people spend more time working
with you than with their family and friends. Yes, you pay them to
do that, but you should also do your bit in taking care of them.
Wellbeing is more than just how happy someone seems. It’s
about finding a good balance between each of the four areas.
The recipe is simple: Healthy employees = healthy business.
Social wellbeing
Having healthy relationships
with people who support us. It
helps us feel connected to the
places we live and work.
Financial wellbeing
Being able to afford the
necessities and provide safety
and security for ourselves and
our loved ones.
Mental wellbeing
Feeling mentally fit and able
to deal with stress and
negativity and being happy
within yourself.
Physical wellbeing
Keeping our bodies healthy.
Eating well, sleeping well, and
being able to recover quickly
from illness.

02 How recessions impact your people’s engagement, performance, and wellbeing
How recessions impact your
people’s engagement,
performance, and wellbeing
23 9 4
The link between wellbeing
and bottom line.
When your employees’ wellbeing is thriving,
your organisation directly benefits — they
take fewer sick days, deliver higher
performance, and have lower rates of
burnout and turnover. But when your
employees’ wellbeing suffers, so does your
organisation’s bottom line.
Jim Hartner
Chief Scientist of Workplace
and Wellbeing, Gallup
Understanding how an economic downturn may affect your
organisation can help buffer it against the affects. But how do
recessions impact your people?
The simple answer is recessions affect everyone differently. The
same is true for companies: some things are predictable based
on business type and size. A small consulting firm might
experience cash flow issues as clients delay paying invoices,
while a major retailer may prioritise store closures.
But the main concern1 for your employees during a recession is
losing their job. This concern can have some pretty major
impacts on how your people work and experience work.
Since 1900, the US has seen 23 recessions and the UK 9. There
have been 4 global recessions since the end of World War II. And
ore are on the horizon. So, over the next few pages, we’ll explore
how engagement, performance, and wellbeing are impacted.

Employee engagement during a recession
As you might expect, companies whose employees are highly
engaged before a recession are better equipped2 to weather
the storm. That’s because their people feel connected to the
purpose and are happy to go the extra mile – often call
discretionary effort. They pull together, roll up their sleeves to
respond to market turmoil.
Company culture plays a big part here.
Especially when it comes to transparency.
Transparency goes far beyond sharing company financial,
ethical, and operational information. It also refers to employers
and employees being open with each other.
It builds the necessary trust, understanding and confidence they
need with you to help navigate any crisis. Transparency allows
your people to feel connected to your business and the events
impacting it. It empowers people to do more.
A lack of transparency leads to cynical, unengaged, and disloyal
employees who lack the motivation, autonomy, or purpose to
help you weather the storm.
Potential job losses and wage stagnation are strong detractors
for employee engagement. A lack of uncertainty, particularly
when it comes to personal finances leads to increased levels of
stress and anxiety. If work is making you stressed, then it stands
to reason your engagement will suffer, right? Being open and
honest with your people will help to mitigate some of this.
Engagement dropped in 66% of company leaders questioned
after the 2008 Great Recession. And more than half of those fell
by more than 2% - indicating a significant shift negative shift in
employee engagement because of the recession.
For companies whose engagement levels were already on the
low end, this will have had a big impact on morale, motivation,
and performance.
💡 Invest in understanding your current levels of employee
engagement now. You’ll know where you stand and can take
appropriate action before tougher times hit.
Not sure where to start?
Check out our chat with Chief People Officer at FSCS, David
Blackburn. He explains how they were able to buck the global
trend during the pandemic, improving employee engagement to
record levels.

Employee performance during a recession
Evidence suggests that performance increases3 during a
recession. Perhaps due to not wanting to be in the firing line for
potential job losses?
During the 2008 Great Recession, aggregate hours worked fell
10%. Yet output only dropped by 7.6%, suggesting output per
worker increased.
Output and performance are different though.
Stanford University carried out a study in 2016. They wanted to
see if the difference in hours/output was due to employees
working harder. Or, if less-productive workers losing their jobs
meant the average output per worker increased. They found
that 85% of that productivity increase was due to improved
levels of employee performance.
Higher performance isn’t always healthy. It may well be a trigger
for burnout. Here are the 7 common signs for your managers to
spot:
1. Emotional, mental, and physical exhaustion
2. Disengagement
3. Increased absenteeism
4. Isolation
5. Higher sensitivity to feedback
6. Emergence of physical symptoms
7. Decreased productivity
Check out this excellent blog about the signs and impacts of
employee burnout.
Employee wellbeing during a recession
Unsurprisingly, job losses, financial uncertainty, falling
engagement, and increased productivity are a bad recipe4 for
employee wellbeing.
A recession is bad news for financial wellbeing which can directly
cause stress and poor mental health. Gym memberships get
cancelled. People switch to cheaper, processed foods and in
some instances meals are skipped. None of which is great for
physical wellbeing. And social spending declines, impacting the
final key area of wellbeing.
The key to supporting wellbeing isn’t away days, yoga, and
sporadic time off. These add to your people’s plate. Get the
strategic things right and the nice-to-haves can follow.
Gallup’s 2010 State of the Global Workplace report showed a
significant increase in employees reporting wellbeing concerns.
Unsurprisingly financial and mental wellbeing were top of the list.
of employees reported being
impacted by burnout during
the 2008 Great Recession
40%

03 How pandemics impact your people’s engagement, performance, and wellbeing
How pandemics impact your people’s
engagement, performance, and wellbeing
The world is still recovering and adapting from COVID-19.
About 30%1 of employees say their working lives have
worsened because of the pandemic. But 55% believe things
have improved for them. With flexibility and autonomy being
two key benefits often cited.
But what was happening inside our organisations during the
pandemic’s peak? Gallup’s 2021 State of the Global
Workplace report provides some good evidence of how
COVID-19 impacted employees:
45% of staff say they
were impacted ‘a lot’
49% reporting
working fewer hours
50% of staff saw their
income reduce
32% reported loosing
their job or business
average global engagement
21%
Key stats from the pandemic2
Gender split
20% male
23% female
Age split
20% under 40
23% over 40
most engaged to least engaged
24% 14%

Europe is plagued with bad managers.
97% of German managers believe they are good managers, yet
69% of employees believe they have bad managers. 60% of
managers across the 5 biggest European countries have never
received people management training. In contrast, only 14% of
US and Canadian managers say the same.
Two-thirds of employees who strongly agree that their manager
helps them to set priorities, are engaged. And more than two-
thirds of employees who agree that their manager focuses on
their strengths, are engaged. Yet, only 14% of European
employees are engaged, suggesting most European managers
struggle to do either of these things.
Employee engagement during a pandemic
💡 Want to improve your own management skills?
Download your free guide to becoming a better manager.
Gallup found engagement levels during the pandemic were
hugely volatile globally, with micro-geographical trends.
At the start, global employee engagement fell by 2%. The first
drop in a decade. Engagement recovered by 1% in 2021,
suggesting that employees responded favourably as
organisations implemented strategies to better deal with the
pandemic.
Engagement in the US and Canada grew throughout the
pandemic. In contrast, Western Europe saw the biggest downturn
in engagement and the slowest bounce back.
But why the difference?
One suggestion is that it’s purely cultural3. As Princeton economist
Alan Krueger wrote in the New York Times: "Europeans work to live,
not live to work. That is at the heart of their engagement issue”.
But if it were purely a cultural issue, why then do more Europeans
choose to work and volunteer well into later life than any other
group around the world?
Perhaps a more likely reason for poor European engagement is
bad managers. The biggest causes of disengagement according
to Gallup are: unfair treatment, unmanageable workload, unclear
communication, lack of support, and unreasonable time pressure.
But what’s the link? Your boss.
Believe they are
a good manager
97%
say they have a
good manager
23%
of employees
are engaged
14%
Why managers matter

So why does remote working work? Well, research found several
contributing factors:
• A lack of commute and distractions mean the average
remote employee works an additional 1.4 days per month.
• The commute for many is a stressful part of their office-based
day. Removing it means they can mentally be ready for work
as soon as they sit at the desk, instead of needing a few
minutes to de-pressurise.
• The ability to get up and move around the house means
employees can relocate their exact place of work when they
start to feel tired or stiff. Or need a fresh perspective.
• The ability to grab a shower at any time has been shown to
refresh staff just as the dreaded post-lunch tiredness hits.
• A better work-life balance for many means reduced stress
and anxiety about things outside of work.
Employee performance during a pandemic
Research around performance during the pandemic tends to
focus on office workers who switched to some level of flexi or
remote work.
Remote work had something of a stigma attached. At least to
those more traditional institutions. Many managers and leaders
believed being out of sight would mean people slacking off and
productivity falling. Research rebutted this4. And performance
typically improved as people gained more control over their
work (and home) life.
In fact, 89% of employees5 who took part in a study reported
that working from home had no negative affect on their
performance.
This may well feel counter-intuitive. But remote-work pioneers
such as Automattic, Adobe, and Spotify all reported improved
performance KPIs pre-2020.

Employee wellbeing during a pandemic
Employee wellbeing is critical during a pandemic. The very
nature of a pandemic puts the physical wellbeing of your people
at risk. And as always with wellbeing, when one type is
unbalanced, the others follow.
Pandemics cause anxiety and stress thanks to the direct impact
they have on health. Coupled with enforced isolation, mass
moves to remote working, and normal life shutting down, it’s
easy to see how mental and social wellbeing are easily at risk
too.
Add in job losses and employees being furloughed, and we tick
off financial wellbeing for a full house
💡 Need some inspiration? Read this short article for 10 effective
ways managers can support their team’s wellbeing
of employees reported an
increase in daily global stress
levels during COVID-19 6
18%
David Blackburn
Chief People Officer
Financial Services Compensation Scheme
Bucking a global trend
Amongst global falling levels of engagement and
wellbeing, the FSCS grew engagement and NPS scores,
bucking the global trend.
Their Chief People Officer, David Blackburn, shares some
of his top tips:
My top tip is that you absolutely do not need a culture
change initiative. If your CEO says that to you, question
it. What you do need is a real understanding of where
your culture is at and what it's doing for you and your
people. Don't act until you have a clear understanding of
what sort of culture you have.
💡 Want to know exactly how David and the team
achieved knockout results during a global pandemic?
Check out our recorded chat with David here.

of employees report
higher levels of stress
and worry during M&A
63%
drop in
engagement
during M&A
14%
Why communication matters
during uncertainty 1
employee-led staff
turnover following
a merger
20%
04 How mergers and acquisitions impact your people’s engagement, performance, and wellbeing
How mergers and acquisitions impact your people’s
engagement, performance, and wellbeing
M&A can present an excellent shortcut for breaking into new
markets or acquiring skills and infrastructure that would
otherwise take many years to develop. One downside is the
constant activity leading to a disjointed mess of different
systems, processes, cultures, and purpose.
The big challenge is retention. M&A can often lead to staff
turnover, and a badly handled one can amplify that. In these
times where it’s becoming more and more important to hold on
to your top talent, businesses can’t afford to lose their best
people.
The impact on trust in management is another focus. Your
people, on the whole, will have a decent level of trust in you
built up over years of service. All of a sudden that can be in
jeopardy with new owners coming in. You need to get off to the
right start to ensure you build credibility and protect trust.
Transparent, regular communication is key.
That can be a real challenge as planned and legal restrictions
dictate when you can start to talk about it. But getting your
communication with your people right will head off a lot of the
engagement and wellbeing challenges.
Yet Gallup told us we
should be concerned
when global engagement
dropped by 2%!

Employee engagement during mergers and acquisitions
Typically, employee engagement decreases during periods of
significant change. It then rebounds once employees have more
clarity about the new strategy.
M&A is certainly a time of significant change, steeped with
uncertainty for all employees. Many leaders don’t survey employees
until their strategic changes are implemented. Based on a
misguided belief that they’ll get skewed or inaccurate data. Big
mistake.
Knowing your baseline is critical to understanding how your people
are handling the process. Engagement fell by an average 14%
during 10 high-profile M&A activities between 2012 and 2016. And
Gallup told us we needed to be concerned about a 2% drop!
And this drop in engagement can have serious consequences.
Business Insider state that employee-led staff turnover can be as
high as 20% following a merger.
It’s easy to understand why. Decisions affecting employee career
paths and livelihoods are being made by leaders behind closed
doors. When questions go unanswered, rumours fly and people
become anxious and pessimistic, with their drive sapped by worries
about layoffs.
Improved engagement levels and more open, transparent
communication would surely help here.
💡 If you’re going through M&A activity now, read our blog, how do
we grow engagement after a fall?
Managers are key to engagement
There are a number of elements at play that can impact
how engaged people remain during and post M&A.
Obviously if trust is being impacted, you have recruiters
on the phone trying to turn your head and rumours are
flying around the office. Engagement can be negatively
impacted.
Managers are huge here. Making managers a part of
your M&A strategy is really important. They have a really
hard job, stuck in the middle. You need to empower
them to have the conversations with their teams that
simply won’t happen between individual employees and
leadership.
Managers can allay fears. They can provide individual
responses and speak to people on the right level. All of
which is helpful when it comes to keeping people
engaged and happy.
Sarah Middleton
Brand Integrations Communication
Manager, ERM

Employee performance
during mergers and acquisitions
American Express looked at the impact M&A activity can have
on employee performance and found four outcomes:
This may explain why companies might see an 8-15% reduction
in employee performance in the first 12 months following a
merger or acquisition.
💡 Concerned performance has dropped following your M&A?
Our A-Z of Performance Management is packed full of tips and
tricks for getting all engines firing again.
Conflict
Employees can see their new
(and existing) peers as rivals
rather than allies. New managers
can also cause rifts.
Motivation
Motivation drops as frustration
grows with new roles, processes,
cultures, and hierarchies.
Guilt
As employees see co-workers
being laid off, they might face
uncertainty about their own role
or workload, or survivor’s guilt.
Morale
Morale suffers when two
conflicting corporate cultures
merge.
Employee wellbeing
during mergers and acquisitions
Wellbeing suffers during M&A.
63% of employees reported higher levels of stress and worry
because of uncertainty 2. Worryingly, stress, anxiety, depression,
psychiatric medication use, and suicide all increases following
acquisitions3.
M&A are times of high-uncertainty, particularly when the
companies involved fail to communicate openly, frequently and
collaboratively with their people.
Rumours begin to fly, people mention redundancies, others talk
of jumping ship. Head-hunters target high-value employees at
businesses about to be acquired with warnings about the ‘bad
things’ they’ve heard about the acquirer and promising them
the world in a new career.
When people aren’t sure what their work future looks like, it
makes sense that doubt, anxiety, and panic set in.
Employees from all parties involved are impacted – not just the
smaller or acquired company. Employees whose careers are
stalled, blue-collar workers, and employees with lower cognitive
and non-cognitive skills are most affected.
💡 Communication is vital during any M&A. Empower your
managers and HR teams to communicate effectively by sharing
this short article on the importance of open and frequent
communication with their people.

05 How to prepare your people for tough times: before they hit
How to prepare your
people for tough times
Your people are your secret weapon to thriving in
tough times.
When people are happy and healthy, they’re more likely to be engaged1.
And engaged people perform better2. So, when it comes to tough times,
prevention is always better than a cure.
Protecting your people during tough times means taking care of their
wellbeing, which leads to higher engagement and better performance.
Support your people and they will support you.
But how do you do that? Resilience.
How is it some people always manage to make the most out of a bad
situation? What stops them from taking something negative personally, or
feeling vilified when things don’t go to plan? Resilience.
Resilience is how you handle difficult situations. Often described as the
ability to bounce back and comfortably carry on during adversity.
It measures how effectively you regulate your thoughts and emotions, as
well as perceiving challenging situations as an opportunity, not a personal
threat.
Having a resilient workforce has huge benefits3. Your people can deal with
change and are less susceptible to burnout. It drive motivation and also
improves employees’ overall health. That’s because resilience and
workplace wellbeing are linked.
Building resilience is very much a personal journey that takes self-reflection,
time, and practice. However, team leaders and managers can support an
individual’s development by providing the right tools and training.
01 Build resilience before tough times
Be open and clear during tough times
Learn and strategize afterwards
02
03

How to prepare your people before tough times hit
01 Understand the basic elements of resilience
The five pillars of resilience meld neatly with wellbeing. They are:
1. Emotional wellbeing – how well you manage your emotions and
thoughts, and how healthy and realistic your views are of yourself
and the world. This is the most fundamental pillar of resilience.
2. Inner drive – your ability to set goals and motivate yourself, as
well as adopt a forward-thinking approach to progress.
3. Future focus – your level of foresight, as well as an ability to focus
on solutions and positive change. It also encompasses
acceptance of failures and adversity.
4. Relationships – having a strong social network with friends, family,
and colleagues which provide emotional and physical support.
5. Physical health – recognising the importance of looking after
yourself physically, as poor physical wellbeing can directly impact
the other pillars.
By recognising how many different personal elements must be tended
to, you’ll be in a good starting position to develop your and others’
resilience. It’ll enable you to identify areas that you or others already
perform well in and those which need working on.
02 Analyse strengths and weaknesses
A person can only develop their resilience with self-reflection.
They need to identify which areas they need to work on and
develop into their strengths too.
Giving and receiving feedback helps with this. Weekly
employee check-ins, frequent 1:1 sessions between managers
and employees, and prompting people to complete 360
feedback are great ways to start.
When people get in the habit of identifying their strengths and
weaknesses, they learn how to focus on success and
opportunities for growth. They’ll feel like nothing can stop them.

03 Improve emotional wellbeing
Building emotional resilience in the workplace takes time and a
willingness to break out of deeply-rooted harmful habits. For
example, negative automatic thoughts are a barrier to many
people’s resilience.
The best way is to challenge these is head on.
Write down negative thoughts when they happen and analyse
their validity. You’ll learn to challenge these thoughts rather than
drown in them.
04 Promote and inner drive
Being self-driven will bring you greater success and productivity
at work. And prevent things becoming overwhelming.
Without it, people can often feel like projects are dragging and
may not put their heart into them.
Having clear goals boosts inner drive and, with practice, helps
maintain momentum. Use goal-setting frameworks like SMART or
OKRs to set realistic, relevant, and effective objectives.
05 Foster a future focus
A growth mindset helps employees to future-gaze
constructively. This promotes openness to change and
adaptation and enables healthy responses to challenges and
problems.
Critical thinking and accountability are important here. Leading
by example will promote this in your team. Critical thinking
requires stopping and thinking logically, rather than being
swayed by emotions. It also means being human. Admit you
don’t know everything and can ask questions to learn more.
Ongoing development is key to building resilience. Team leaders
need to encourage this.
Personal or professional development plans (PDP) are a good
tool here.
Effective PDPs can prevent development from feeling
overwhelming. You can use PDPs for all the strategies listed
throughout this section. Setting clear and actionable steps will
make building resilience feel more tangible.

07 Support physical wellbeing
A person’s physical state is closely linked to their mental and
emotional one. There’s only so much you can do to support others as
physical fitness is personal.
However, you can help people gain the physical and emotional rest
they need by promoting a good work-life balance.
Fair workloads, clear goals, and properly organised deadlines
help here. When people work after a proper break, they’ll be much
more switched on.
08 Provide personal and professional
development
Ongoing development is key to building resilience. Team leaders
need to encourage this.
Personal or professional development plans (PDP) are a good tool
here.
Effective PDPs can prevent development from feeling overwhelming.
You can use PDPs for all the strategies listed throughout this section.
Setting clear and actionable steps will make building resilience feel
more tangible.
06 Develop healthy relationships
Relationships take time and can’t be forced. But feeling better
understood, supported, and inspired by others makes them
worth the effort. Three areas to focus on are: challenging toxic
relationships, building genuine connections, and finding or
becoming a mentor.
If there are people who bring you and others down at work,
think about what can be done. Often, people don’t realise what
they’re doing and how it affects others until someone else
challenges it. Honest feedback can help with this.
Building genuine connections is as simple as expressing real
interest in others, including their differences, and being
mindful of their views and values. Being open to how others
live expands your own perceptions and expectations.
A mentor gives you a safe space outside your immediate team
to express and challenge yourself. Encourage your team to
learn from those around them. This could be as simple as
observing from a distance or having more formal arrangements.

06 How to prepare your people for tough times: while you’re in the thick of it
How to weather the
storm while you’re in it
During change and uncertainty, communication is key to supporting
your people.
Every good leader knows the importance of overcommunicating
during a crisis. Urgency, transparency, and empathy help people
adjust to the constantly changing conditions tough times bring.
Urgency encourages people to make quick decisions to mitigate
harm.
Transparency builds people’s trust in leaders. It also shows respect
for employees by recognising them as capable of coping with what
is being shared.
And showing empathy can foster resilience in facing the challenges
that lie ahead.
Open, honest, and regular two-way feedback between managers
and employees is one of the most effective tools for building and
maintaining employee engagement. Gallup report more than 90%
of highly engaged businesses put communication in their top three
priorities. 81% have it in their top two.
Cognitive psychology tells us that deliberately holding information
back does way more harm than good. Yet some CEOs and
managers choose to shut down during tough times. They think
sharing bad or worrying news will be counter-productive.
02
03
of employees feel a lack of effective and open
communication is the main cause of workplace issues
86%

The importance of being open during tough times
The Paradox of Honesty shows that when we admit to
something negative or tell people we have no idea what
happens next, they feel safer with us leading them.
Honesty and openness improve psychological safety.
The key thing is to talk with your people more often.
Make manager/employee 1:1 meetings monthly. Run
town halls when needed. Start a weekly email update
from the CEO. Make sure your people have plenty of
airtime to talk with you – don’t fall into the trap of only
ever talking at them.
💡 Consider introducing a weekly check-in for your
people. Encourage them to share their thoughts and
feelings on how the crisis is impacting them. As well as
more functional feedback like goal-progress and work-
specific updates.
Be visible. Be honest.
“One of the most important things in communication is
staying very, very close to your team, to your people, to
being authentic, to being transparent.
It’s easy when times are difficult to want to shy away
when you don’t have the answers to the questions that
you need. But it’s never more important to be visible and
let people know what you know and what you don’t know.
And we still, to this day, we have a lot of questions that we
don’t have the answers for, but people respect the fact
that we’re honest with them.
As difficult a period that this industry has seen over the
last two years, you would imagine employee engagement
to actually take a nose-dive, that people would be pretty
discouraged or put off or upset, and we have found just
the opposite. Our employee engagement scores have
stayed just as strong throughout the pandemic as ever
because there’s a real pride in what we do.”
Being honest is essential.
Ed Bastian
CEO, Delta Airlines
See video here

Set goals for clarity during tough times
It may seem odd but setting clear goals will keep your entire
organisation on track. Everyone is focused on the same
destination, just via different routes.
Setting goals during a crisis helps to motivate and align
individual, team, and department work. In uncertain times,
collaborating to set goals can help to ease stress and provide
much-needed support and clarity.
And focusing on professional development will build resilience,
helping them prepare for the challenges they’ll be facing.
But beware. During tough times, goals need frequent reviews as
priorities and objectives adapt to the situation. An outdated
goal can have a negative impact on engagement, performance,
and wellbeing.
💡 Check out these 10 people you’ve got to listen to when it
comes to goals and OKRs.
Your six-step approach to setting and
reviewing goals during tough times.
1. Start with organisational goals, shift short-term goals
toward current priorities
2. Identify goals that are still relevant and bin the rest.
3. Create goals for newly important areas
4. Cascade this through your departments then team then
individual goals
5. Have managers run frequent (weekly) reviews and adjust
where needed.
6. Run an organisational goal review quarterly to ensure high-
level objectives are still relevant.
So, ensure your managers run regular goal reviews with their
teams. A weekly check-in will keep your people focused and
help them to prioritise.

07 How to prepare your people for tough times: after you’ve weathered the storm
Set your people up for
success after the storm
You’ve made it! The pandemic is over. The economy is on the
up. Your M&A went swimmingly, and everyone is still on board.
Well, not to get all Nostradamus on you, but you never know
when the next tough episode is coming. But be sure, it is
coming. And now’s the time to take stock, learn the lessons, and
introduce new processes and strategies.
Here are 5 steps every business should take after a crisis.
01 Review the experience
The first step is to look at what you, your people, and your
business has just gone through. Collect the thoughts and
experiences from your people. Find out how they felt, what they
went through, and poll for ideas on futureproofing.
02 Continue to focus on resilience
Resilience is like any other skill. It needs honing. Yes, your people
may have just gone through a crisis and come out stronger, but
don’t lose focus. Put plans into motion to build and strengthen
resilience further.
02
03

07 How to prepare your people for tough times: after you’ve weathered the storm
03 Build better communication processes
You’ll have seen the impact good communication has on your
people and business during your recent tough time.
Again, resting on your laurels is not a sensible move here.
Continue to talk to your people open and honestly. Run frequent
employee check-ins, have your managers run 1:1s more often,
and open up lines of communication across your business. Make
sure your people can talk and be heard when they need to be.
04 Look at trends
Both within your business and externally it’s important to see
what trends are emerging that will help mitigate impacts further
down the line.
Are your people asking for more flexibility in how they work
following the recent crisis? Are industry innovators preaching the
benefits of certain tools?
Look out for potential processes and strategies that will help
future-proof your people. Don’t be afraid to experiment and to
help you out moving forward.
05 Shake up your hiring and retention
strategies
It’s likely you’ll have learnt a lot about your people during the
last period of change and uncertainty. Some hidden gems may
have emerged and some previous stars may have faded. You’ll
have a better feel for strengths, loyalty, and weaknesses.
Take that information and reform how (and who) you hire and
how you keep people long-term.
Ensure you build a team who are capable of helping you not just
when times are easy but when disasters strike. Reward great
work and innovation fairly, celebrate the great things your
people are doing, and build engagement organically.

08 How Weekly10 supports your employee engagement, performance, and wellbeing in tough times
How Weekly10 supports your employee engagement,
performance, and wellbeing in tough times
Employee wellbeing needs to be your primary
focus during tough times. That’s because it
impacts engagement, which in turn influences
performance.
Through building resilience pre-crisis and
putting communication and goal-setting at the
heart of your response, you’ll be set to navigate
any rocky waters.
How a Weekly10 employee
check-in helps
Weekly10 is an app that plugs into Microsoft
Teams. It’s a weekly employee check-in that
helps your employees and their managers to
have better, more productive conversations.
That’s because it encourages two-way
feedback which builds trust. An essential part
of having a healthy, resilient workforce.
A regular check-in helps all your people, but in
subtly different ways depending on their role.
Area Employees Managers HR and Leaders
Engagement Share successes, ask
for help, and self-
driven engagement
Be more responsible
for self- and team-
engagement
See engagement
and sentiment
without surveys
Recognition Give and get
mentions to drive
morale and visibility
Identify emerging
talent and showcase
exceptional work
Understand who to
fast-track for
leadership positions
Performance Curate regular
feedback for better
performance
conversations
Spend less time
prepping and more
time focusing on
your people
Make decisions
based on data, not
hearsay or gut
feeling
Goal-setting Set and track goals
to understand
performance and
contributions
Set and track goals
to understand team
performance and
contributions
Compare groups to
knowledge share
between high/low
performing teams
Wellbeing Have open, honest
conversations
because of their
regular cadence
Builds rapport and
trust, and can tackle
challenges before
they escalate
Know that the AI-
based insights you
get aren’t gameable
or misleading

Engagement: The Weekly10 check-in is the heart of the
process. Employees feedback, give peer recognition and
update goals and objectives/key results (OKRs).
Feedback: Managers feedback, opening up two-way
communication. Managers respond to feedback, helping
employees feel valued. They can also pass-up feedback to
recognise contribution and potential.
Performance: Up to 90% less admin for performance
management, reviews and ad-hoc conversations. Auto-
schedule and record 1:1s, annual appraisals, and more regular
reviews in Weekly10. Use check-in history to populate
conversations agendas.
Insights: Easy-to-read dashboards give you engagement,
performance and talent mapping insights. Human Resource
Directors and business leaders use AI-driven engagement and
sentiment data to anticipate problems and can roll-up
performance against the corporate plan.
Sentiment
Trend
analytics
10Pulse
Reviews
1:1s
360° feedback
Feedback
Recognition
Goals/OKRs
Talent mapping
01
02
03
04
It all starts with a Weekly10 check-in

Engagement
Build trust and transparency between
managers and their teams with regular
two-way feedback through the weekly
check-in.
Get engagement and sentiment insights
without the pain of Q12s or unreliability of
pulse surveys. Machine learning provides
powerful insights on how engaged your
people are, where your strengths and
weaknesses are and how to act to best
address any issue.
Employees get feedback in real-time,
not 3 months’ time. Check-ins
encourage incremental improvements
that support personal development and
keep people future focussed. With the
ability to set goals or OKRs you can keep
on top of how aligned your people are
and keep targets relevant.
You can also develop bespoke
performance conversations such as
reviews powered by the data shared by
your people in their check-in (reducing
prep time for reviews by 90%).
Give people an asynchronous, always-
on channel to raise wellbeing concerns
directly. These can be routed to your
trained wellbeing team rather than
going to the person’s manager.
What’s more, sentiment analysis and
other data tools help you spot early
warning signs and potential trends that
help you support your people earlier.
Performance Wellbeing
Anna Edmondson
Chief People Officer,
PowerOn Platforms
We introduced Weekly10 about 6
months into lockdown and the regular
check-in changed the way we were
communicating. It massively helped
reduce the impact of not being able to
meet in person. Related, Weekly10 has
been key in helping us keep a better
eye on wellbeing with increased scope
for intervention when needed.
Customer review
May 2022
Weekly10 really helps keep performance
conversations alive in an organisation
Customer review
January 2022
Weekly10 is a performance management
and employee engagement must have.
We love the overall experience: setting
up goals and OKRs, weekly check-ins,
performance reviews, all in one platform
integrated with Microsoft Teams.
Customer review
May 2022
You’ve transformed employee feedback
and evaluation for us. This is a big win.

Book a demo to see how
Weekly10 can support you
and your people through any
tough times ahead.
Performance management
Employee engagement
+
Book a demo

Where to go for
further reading
Section 1
1 Forbes, What is a recession? https://www.forbes.com/advisor/investing/what-is-a-
recession/
2 Fortune, Over two-thirds of economists believe a recession is likely to hit.
https://fortune.com/2022/06/13/recession-economists-survey-2023-inflation-
interest-rates/
3 BBC, Bank of England warns UK will fall into recession this year.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-62405037
4 Columbia University, Epidemic, Endemic and Pandemic, what are the differences?
https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/public-health-now/news/epidemic-endemic-
pandemic-what-are-differences
5 Duke University, Statistics show pandemics are more common than we think.
https://globalhealth.duke.edu/news/statistics-say-large-pandemics-are-more-likely-
we-thought
6 Harvard Business Review, Don’t make this common M&A mistake.
https://hbr.org/2020/03/dont-make-this-common-ma-mistake
Section 2
1 HR Zone, Weathering the storm of recession.
https://www.hrzone.com/engage/managers/employee-engagement-in-the-
recession-weathering-the-storm
2 Gallup, Building engagement in this economic crisis.
https://news.gallup.com/businessjournal/115213/building-engagement-economic-
crisis.aspx
3 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Great recession, great recovery?
https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2018/article/great-recession-great-recovery.htm
4 Annual Review of Sociology, Effects of the great recession; Health and wellbeing.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/276527543_Effects_of_the_Great_Recessio
n_Health_and_Well-Being
Section 3
1 Gallup, State of the Global Workplace 2022.
https://www.gallup.com/workplace/349484/state-of-the-global-workplace-2022-
report.aspx
2 New York Times, For workers, happiness is next to productivity.
https://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/13/business/worldbusiness/the-workplace-for-
workers-happiness-is-next-to.html
3 Forbes, Three new studies end debate over the effectiveness of hybrid working.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/bryanrobinson/2022/02/04/3-new-studies-end-
debate-over-effectiveness-of-hybrid-and-remote-work/?sh=3e3d623f59b2
4 University of Southampton, How is the COVID-19 accidental experiment around home
working changing the way the UK will work after lockdown.
https://workfutures.southampton.ac.uk/projects/how-is-the-covid-19-accidental-
experiment-around-working-from-home-changing-the-way-the-uk-will-work-after-
lockdown/
Section 4
1 1 HR Zone, Engagement during M&A, ignore it at your peril.
https://www.hrzone.com/engage/employees/employee-engagement-during-
mergers-and-acquisitions-ignore-it-at-your-peril
2 Brigham Young University, Employee wellness declines during mergers and acquisitions.
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1041&context=intuition
3 Stockholm School of Economics, How do acquisitions affect the mental health of
employees?
https://ecgi.global/sites/default/files/working_papers/documents/bachbaghaibossil
vafinal.pdf
Section 5
1 CIPD, Resilience, an evidence-based review.
https://www.cipd.co.uk/knowledge/culture/well-being/evidence-resilience#gref
Section 6
1 Harvard Business Review, Delta CEO Ed Bastian on leading the airline through two
years of disruption. https://hbr.org/video/6292966279001/delta-ceo-ed-bastian-on-
leading-the-airline-through-two-years-of-disruption

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